Digital Camera

bigfeller

Right, have been thinking of upgrading the ould digital camera. Reasons are:
1. Want to get one I can use with an underwater housing - heading to the Red Sea in the summer
2. Want on that moseys a bit quicker - the times between taking photos with the current one are too long, expecially if using the flash.
3. Want to get something a bit more compact, easier to carry about.

At the moment I am using a Sony DSC-P52 and am happy with the pictures themselves but the unit is a bit too big to carry about and the shutter times are slow.

Have had a look about and narrowed it to the following:
Canon PowerShot S70
Fujifilm FinePix F810 Zoom
Olympus Stylus 500 Digital
Olympus C-7000 Zoom
Sony DSC-P200

See here

Think housings are available for most of them, will obviously double check before buying. If there is not one for the P200 then there is one for the P150.

What I was wondering was has anybody used any of these cameras or has anybody any recomendations???

Peace

A norwegian in exile asked me to post this up for hium...


Link

Don't ask me why he couldn't post himself.... too much deep air diving i think.

bigfeller

Lovely camera....but it's a bit too big and a lot too pricey :eek:

I think if I spent that much on a camera I'd be out on my ear. Maybe that's what happened to the Scandanavian one...he had to sell the keyboard to help pay for it but kept the mouse for browsing

Evil Phil

IIRC somebody recommended Fuji to me, as they've been making cameras for years, their digital cameras come with great macro functionality and their underwater housings are good. HTH*.



*TBH.

Evil Phil

Our viking compadre has been very quiet lately now that I think of it

Peace

Evil Phil wrote:

Our viking compadre has been very quiet lately now that I think of it

Busy man... earning a few euronians in Norway...

Day of the Norwegian Returns To Ireland, should be around april.

CJhaughey

I am not 100% on the Canon S70, however I have been using the S50 for around 2 years now with the old housing and have been impressed with it.
I believe the newer models have an underwater white balance feature which is handy.

NordicDiver

Bigfeller

I have looked at the cameras that you listed and it boiled down to the S70 & F810.

The fact that Ikelite has a housing just out now for the F810 (300 $) should make the decision easy. Ikelites housings a so much better than the Canon or Fuji housings. They are thicker, will last longer and allow some room around the camera and it looks really good with optional adapters for the Inon lenses. And add the Ikelite tray and a flash and we are really getting somewhere here The Fuji housing (WPFX 701) has a depth of max 40m, but i know it has been issues with the Canon and the Fuji housing buttons to stick deeper then 30m. The Ikelite have a 60m depth rating. The condensation issue will not be that big in an Ikelite housing with thicker walls and more rugged construction.

RAW format is very important here, and both have it. There is now a RAW converter plug-in for Photoshop CS if you use the Fuji. Go to a site like Steves-Digcams or Dpreview and download a photo or two from both cameras. The F810 has incredible resolution.

Until now the problem with the S70 was that Inon didn't support the Canon S70 housing with an AD mount. In a May there will be a new WA lens that should overcome any vignetting problems associated with mounting WA lenses on cameras with 28 mm lenses, such as the Canon S70 ( UWL-100 28AD ).

What to buy, what to buy, I think I would have bought the Fuji because of the Ikelite housing, if not the Ikelite housing i would have bought the Canon.

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/fuji810.html
http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/fuji810tray.html

Check the MACRO pictures taken with a Fuji F810 at this website, www.ikanimages.com

Best of luck
Jan

bigfeller

Mmmmmm Ikelite housing. Hadn't even considered them till now, thinking they were too expensive, that one is $270 in B&H. Looking more into things now. Wasn't too hot on the 810 but rethinking. I think an uncle of mine has one so I might borrow it off him and play around with it for a while. The pictures on those sites look pretty sweet alright.

Will let you know what I decide and post up a few samples. Will be a few weeks though. Waiting for a trip to the states!!

PS Apologies to Nodic, sent the PM before I read the post. Probably didn't make much sense.

bigfeller

Right, just to mess myself up even more I've been looking at more cameras.

I'm waiting for someone to head to the states so they can pick it up for me. At this rate I'll have read about every camera on the market. The next 2 cameras into the fray are
- Canon PowerShot SD500
- Olympus C-7000 Zoom

The Oly has a 5x zoom and has an Ikelite housing. Works out to around €575 in total. Severly tempted. The SD500 looke like a lovely machine also, but comes with a Canon housing for €515.

The problem is too much choice!! And every camera I look at seems to have one silly thing wrong with it (short battery life, too low zoom etc.) so I just keep looking....

http://tinyurl.com/6qtxq

NordicDiver

You can really get lost out there, so many cameras and then try to get one that fits in a housing and so on...
The Olympus would be my choice also out of the two, the lack of RAW format on the Canon, kind of puts me off it.
I can’t find any housing for the Olympus, only a wet bag from EWAmarine and Ikelite does not list a housing for it on its webpage?

Jan

..and I voted No on the Boards trip in may :eek:

bigfeller

Yep, it's literally a jungle out there. There is a housing for the Oly here. Think it's the same on as 720 (here) but it doens't say on the Ikelite site.
Guess the 5x zoom appeals to me, and the longer battery life than the Fuji. Still, won't be getting it for another 3-4 weeks so plenty of time to confuse myself some more :rolleyes:

NordicDiver

Tought it was a bit strange that Ikelite did not list the housing on the website and the housing for the 720 did not align with the buttons, so I sent Ikelite a mail and got this back :

Thank you for the inquiry. I appreciate your interest in Ikelite products. Ikelite intends to introduce new Digital Still Housing 6130.70 for the Olympus C7000 and C70 cameras in late April. The most recent Ikelite product information and a listing of Ikelite dealers/distributors worldwide are on our Internet web site (http://www.ikelite.com). Please contact the Ikelite distributor and they can direct you to the appropriate dealer for product, pricing, and purchasing information.

Cameras Underwater in Ottery St. Mary, Devon.
Phone 1404-812277 and fax 1404-812399.
email ikelite@cameras-uw.co.uk

Regards, Duane Brigham / Ikelite

bigfeller

Damnit, another spanner in the works. I think I'll be getting it before then. Ah well. Back to the drawing board..

NordicDiver

If you are thinking about the F810 again...sadly I have to tell you that the housing form Ikelite is delayed, it will be available by April 15th.

Here is what Ike says:

Decision was to market the F810 housing without a tray and handle, making it an option. This required a lanyard to be attached with nowhere to attach it. Mold now being made to provide such an attachment point. Does this indicate just how confused we can be? And no, I get the impresssion we are always late because everything seems to take twice as long and cost twice as much predicted............

paddywhack

Slightly off the discussion but this weekend I found out that Fuji for some reason is selling it's memory cards for half the price of other brands.

I got a 256MB SD memory for the same price as other brands were selling 128MB SD card.

Might be useful information to anyone getting new memory or expanding etc.

bigfeller

So confused. At this point I think I'll just buy this and try to remember what I see under water!

bigfeller

I know bringing up old threads makes Jeebus cry but...

As a conclusion I decided to go with the SD500. Had to order the housing from the states (stupid import duty) and got the camera from 7dayshop. Got the housing in 3 days and it worked fine on a dive last night. Hope to get the camera late this week or early next week. Reason I went for it was it's compact enough to use every day, picture quality is supposed to be good. Raw is not a huge issue, and an extra battery was only a tenner.

Was severly tempted to buy a camera with an Ikelite housing but as I am off to the Red Sea in 2 weeks money is a bit tight. Also my computer has gone a bit gaga. See here. So there may be another purchase in the next few days. My visa bill will be calculated by Nasa next month.

When I get to take a few shots I'll whack them up for a comparison.

Cheers

BF

Oh, and if ya have any good reccomendations for a computer - let me know!!